The Indian School of Business (ISB) recently held its graduation day, which marked the passing out of the largest group of students from the school. A total of 1014 students received their certificates: 898 PGP 2017 students, 61 PGPMAX 2016 students and 55 from the MFAB class of 2016.
Now, ISB’s alumni network increases to over 8,500 people with a presence in 41 countries.
Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Industry and Commerce, Government of India, was the chief guest. She gave away certificates to the graduating students and addressed the gathering.
Sitharaman said, “I would like the young minds of this country to build business houses and create more jobs. India needs several entrepreneurs who can become fountainheads of commercially relevant ideas that will make a difference to the economy and the country, and this is my expectation from the ISB graduates. I congratulate the graduating students and wish them a bright future.”
Inspiring speeches
Adi Godrej, Chairman of the ISB Executive Board; Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Mohali Campus Advisory Board; Rajendra Srivastava, Dean, ISB; and members of the ISB Board, participated in the celebrations along with students, families, faculty, alumni, staff and other dignitaries.
Rajendra Srivastava welcomed the gathering by saying, “As future leaders, you need to learn how to grow and compete each day. If you have to succeed in this competitive environment, dream big, have the tenacity to convert your dreams into reality and face challenges with conviction. Each one of you is unique and hence do not try to live someone else’s life and do not let others’ opinions drown down your inner voice. Challenge the status quo and while being a good manager is the basic requirement, being a good leader is what ultimately matters. Be conscious of the need for utmost integrity and diligence in your personal and professional life.”
Sharing his experiences with the graduating students, Adi Godrej said, “As a management student, one of the key things I learnt was the power of team work and the importance of building teams and retaining people, an idea that I imbibed early in my career. Knowledge is power and leadership is about doing the tough things that need to be done and no one else wants to.”
Referring to the role of family businesses in the economy, he said, “Family managed businesses are the ‘unsung heroes’ of the Indian economy. They make up more than two-thirds of the world’s companies, employing half the world’s workforce and contribute to well over half the world’s GDP.”
Awards
The school also celebrated the accomplishments of its students and gave away awards to those who excelled in academics, extra-curricular activities and had demonstrated exemplary leadership skills throughout the year. The list of awards is as follows:
- ISB Scholar of Excellence: Is awarded in recognition of outstanding academic performance throughout the year.
The ISB Scholar of Excellence for the PGP class of 2017 was awarded to Bharathi Rajan Muthu Krishnan, Rupinder Arora and Sourabh Gupta. Swati Gupta was awarded with the PGPMFAB 2016 Scholar of Excellence, while Pankaj Poddar was awarded the ISB Scholar of Excellence for PGPMAX class of 2016.
- Dean’s List: This comprises students who make it to the top 10 percentile of the class for their academic accomplishments. This year, a total of 106 students made it to the prestigious list across the PGP, PGPMAX and PGP MFAB programmes.
- Chairman’s All Rounder Award PGP class of 2017: Was given to Sarthak Ahuja, Shyam Nambiar and Deepansha Trivedi, who had demonstrated exceptional all round leadership skills through the year
- ISB Young Leaders’ and ‘ ISB Torchbearer’ awards: These were given to over 67 students of the PGP class of 2017, who had contributed to the school in different ways, through the year.
- Best Professional Club award: This was given to Business Technology Club and Consulting Club while the Best Social Club award was given to the Music Club and Dance Club.
Professors of the year
As a part of an ISB tradition, students honoured their favourite faculty through the Professor of the Year awards.
- PGP class of 2017: Sarang Deo and Anjani Jain were voted the Professor of the Year for Core Coursesfor Hyderabad and Mohali campus respectively. Piyush Kumar received the Professor of the Year for Elective Course award across both the campuses.
- PGPMAX and PGP MFAB: Dishan Kamdar, who is also the Deputy Dean (academic programmes), was voted the Professor of the Year by PGPMAX class of 2016 and PGP MFAB class of 2016.
- Academic Associate of the year: This award was given away by studentsto those who supported them in their learning throughout the year. Gaurav Tyagi was awarded by the PGPMAX and PGP classes.
- Merit Scholarships in Information Technology from SRITNE: The Srini Raju Centre for Information Technology and the Networked Economy at ISB awarded three merit scholarship to students opting to major in the subject of the IT. The awardees from the PGP class of 2017 were Mohit Satish Patni, Pramod Gubbi Suresh and Mayank Thakur.
- SREI Infrastructure award: SREI Infrastructure awarded three top student teams from the PGP class of 2017, who contributed to its annual sector-wise report of 2017.